


The Substitute

by nightrose



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Begging, Homophobic Language, Humiliation, Hurt/Comfort, I'm Sorry, M/M, Misogyny, Public Humiliation, Rape, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, Unrequited Love, Verbal Humiliation, Violence, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-22
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:22:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26598256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightrose/pseuds/nightrose
Summary: Instead of being killed at the barricades, Enjolras and the rest of Les Amis de l'ABC are imprisoned by the National Guards.When their captors take a little too much interest in Enjolras, Grantaire offers himself up in his place.
Relationships: Enjolras/Grantaire (Les Misérables)
Comments: 62
Kudos: 116





	1. An Offer Made

**Author's Note:**

> This is terrible, shameless whump and I'm embarrassed to have written it. Please don't read it if you might be triggered by themes surrounding sexual assault, because that's what this fic is all about. 
> 
> Sorry.

A hot blossom of pain runs down Enjolras’s shoulder, through his arm. He grits his teeth and prepares to run at the cell door again. 

“Stop,” Combeferre orders from his own cell, across the dingy hallway. His voice is firm but gentle, as it would be with any of his patients. “You know that’s not doing any good.”

“I have to do something,” Enjolras retorts. It’s more than he can bear to sit idly, waiting for the execution that is no doubt to come. He can’t stand to let the thoughts of the fact that he has failed, that the people abandoned them to death and capture, fill up his head. 

“Then _wait,_ Enjolras. You’re no good to any of us if you beat yourself to death against the walls here.”

He’s damnably right, as usual, and Enjolras settles for pacing his cell like a caged tiger, looking for escape. It’s a tiny space, perhaps six by six feet square. He’s been thrust into it alongside Jehan Prouvaire, who is badly wounded, and—Enjolras curls his upper lip in disgust—the drunkard Grantaire, still sleeping off his inebriation. 

He resists the urge to vent some of his fury by waking Grantaire with a kick. He _will_ treat his fellow men better than that, even if they do not merit it. 

Instead, he turns his mind back to the problem at hand: escape.

He has the clothes on his back, nothing more. His weapons, including the slim knife stowed in his boot, were of course taken from him upon capture. His two fellow prisoners are useless in any potential escape. Jehan has taken a bullet to the thigh and cannot move at all lest the bleeding begin anew, risking his life, and Grantaire is unconscious. 

The cell also contains a bucket, presumably to serve for those necessities of animal existence which even a prisoner cannot deny, and nothing else. 

Enjolras has to wrap his mind around the simple facts of the situation in which he finds himself. 

There is no way out. They are completely trapped, and Enjolras can help neither himself, nor his compatriots. 

Enjolras has never felt helpless before. He does not care for the experience. 

There must surely be some way out. Sooner or later someone will have to come for them, either to execute them or to torture them for information, or to bring them food and drink if they’re to be kept alive and tried properly. 

And sure enough, these musings are interrupted by the sound of footsteps against the cold flagstones and the laughter of rough voices. The regular patrol of _gendarmes,_ no doubt. They stop in front of the cells, so Enjolras glares fiercely at them. There are four of them, all men in their early thirties, slovenly and not entirely sober. 

“Brothers,” Enjolras attempts, “Will you hear me? You, too, are oppressed by the corruption of our liberties. Will you not listen to Patria’s call?”

They only laugh. “Look, a caged lion.”

“So fierce! Best not let him out, or the schoolboy may bite you!”

This sends them both into hysterics. One of them gives Enjolras a considering look that makes him feel strangely dirty, though he knows not why. “Do you think he bites?”

“Guillaume, you dog!” One of his compatriots slaps his shoulder. 

“Why, look at him. This one’s quite pretty.”

Ah. So that’s the matter at hand.

Enjolras is not naive about this. He knows what he looks like. All his life, he’s faced the sneering, and sometimes the crude remarks, of his fellow men. He’s even been mistaken for a woman. He is well aware that his face is comely, bordering on, well, pretty. It’s one of many reasons he has avoided intimacies, given the assumptions that are made about him. 

Nor, he supposes, ought he to be shocked that abuses of this kind happen at the hands of the state, when all other manner of cruelty comes so easily to them. 

He had prepared himself for torture, interrogation, even execution. Rape he had not been expecting, foolishly believing that his sex would protect him. But if it comes to that, he is ready to endure. 

“What, you want to fuck the boy?” One of the other guards retorts. 

Enjolras lets himself feel a brief flicker of hope. Perhaps the strange bias against men who prefer other men will protect him from this. Though Enjolras counts himself among that number, when he happens to notice other people in that way at all, and though he finds the public distaste for sodomy absurd (given that the Greeks, those founders of democracy, had not only practiced but praised it), he will be happy now if it prevents them from abusing him.

He is willing to suffer if need be, but he would rather save his strength for a moment when it can do his country some good, rather than being privately abused by these anonymous brutes. 

“He’s as pretty as a girl. And I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there’s no girls around.”

They laugh again, and Enjolras grimaces, steeling himself for what is to come. He’ll have to be stoic through it, lest he lose all the dignity he has remaining. If he handles this like a brave patriot, perhaps there is an opportunity for escape. Maybe he can get close enough to one of them to steal the keys, or distract them enough that the others are able to escape. 

Regardless, he must not allow himself to show fear. The eyes of the other Amis are on them, wide and terrified. He will be disgraced by what these men will do to his body, he knows, but he must not allow them to degrade his spirit. He still has his duty to the others, as their leader, to set a brave example. 

It does not matter what happens to this flesh he inhabits, he reminds himself. He was willing to die for his cause. He asked others to be willing to do the same. He must not show them a coward’s face now. 

He hears the key scraping in the lock, and then one of the guards, a brutish blond fellow, takes Enjolras by the upper arm. All those bold thoughts of bravery flee, and he freezes in instinctive terror. He curses himself, but he cannot stop the flinch that he knows must be visible to all of them—his friends, and these guards. He can see enough of the blond one’s face to know that he is grinning at the sight of Enjolras’s fear. 

“Wait.” 

It takes him a moment to realize the voice which speaks is not his own. It comes from Grantaire, from somewhere on the ground. He had not realized Grantaire had awoken from his drunken stupor.

“Gentlemen, you don’t want to do that to him,” Grantaire says, and Enjolras steals a look down at him. 

To his surprise, Grantaire isn’t huddled on the ground in his drunken stupor, as he had been. He looks perfectly bright and alert, clear-eyed and oddly sober, though Enjolras can still smell the stale wine wafting off of him. He’s sitting cross-legged, upright on the floor of the cell, and he’s smiling a cold, empty smile. Enjolras has, unwillingly, spent a good deal of time in Grantaire’s company, and he’s never seen that expression on his unlovely features before. 

“Oh, I think we do,” the guard says, running a rough fingertip across Enjolras’s lips. Enjolras can’t stop himself from trying to twist away from his grasp, though it’s pointless. He is battered from the fight and his futile attempts at escape, and the guard is much stronger than he.

“Leave him alone.”

“And go without our fun?” Another guard scoffs. There’s a casual cruelty in his voice that sends terror shooting through Enjolras’s whole body, with the certain knowledge of what that man would do to him. _Will_ do to him. 

“I’d never ask that of you,” Grantaire says. “Why, that would hardly be fair.”

He shifts, then, out of his sitting position and onto his knees, and turns his head to one side, and Enjolras almost knows what’s coming next before he says it, and yet there is no way he could ever have prepared himself to hear Grantaire say: 

“Do it to me instead.”

Enjolras freezes, and the world goes still. None of the guards seem to react. Enjolras himself cannot find the words to protest, possibly for the first time in his life. 

“I know,” Grantaire says, quirking an eyebrow. “It seems an absurd bargain. He is so pretty, and I am an ugly drunk. Hardly as good as a girl, since you claim that’s what you’re looking for.”

The guards grunt in crude agreement. It shreds Enjolras’s heart to hear Grantaire degrade himself this way, though he’s lobbed cruel words in his directions oftener than he can now bear to admit, even in the privacy of his own mind. 

“But I see you’re willing to hear me out, and I commend you for your wisdom. Yes, it seems like he’d be a more natural victim, looking at the two of us. Except that he’s shaking and terrified and probably scheming for the first chance he gets to bite your cocks off, and here I am, asking for it. Begging for it, if you’d rather.”

Maybe Enjolras is imagining it, but it seems to him that the hand on his upper arm loosens a small fraction. 

“Besides, it’s a nice fantasy to fuck a virgin, I’m sure, but I don’t think he’d have the first idea what to do with a man. If you tried to put it in his arse, he’d probably squeeze so tight he’d snap you in half. I may not be much to look at, but I’ve never gotten any complaints—and I have quite a bit of experience,” Grantaire says, rambling now, as he so often does. 

“Grantaire, no,” Enjolras tries. The guard raises his other hand and slaps him across the face, hard enough that his head spins and his ears ring.

“Shut up. I want to hear what this one’s saying.”

“What can you do to a man that’s unwilling?” Grantaire is saying. “You could force yourselves in him, I suppose—though it’s like to hurt you as much as it does him. _Maybe_ you could get it in his mouth, though again, he might unman you with his teeth. And I know him, as you do not—trust me, he’ll try. He’s not one to give up, or allow himself to be humiliated.”

The way that Grantaire is willingly humiliating himself now. Enjolras couldn’t bring himself to do this, no matter what depended on it. Certainly he can’t join Grantaire in his pleading, not even to save his comrade. He wishes he could, but he lacks the strength.

“Not like me. I’m willing—I’m even pleading for it. If you take me instead, you can have anything you want. Any fantasy you’ve ever had. I’ll beg for it the whole time. I’ll lick your boots. I’ll drink your piss. Anything you want. I’ll do it, and I’ll be grateful.”

The insouciant tone is out of Grantaire’s voice now, and Enjolras hears something new—pure desperation coming through. Begging, as he promised that he would. “Grantaire, don’t do this,” he tries again. 

This time the guard hits Enjolras hard enough that he falls to the ground. 

“See?” Grantaire says. “I promise I can take a better beating than that.”

“Hoping to fuck your way to freedom?” One of the guards scoffs.

“No,” Grantaire answers, and Enjolras can hear that he is being nothing except for purely honest. “All I ask is that you leave him alone.”

“You’re in love with him, then?”

Enjolras is about to speak again, to protest, even if it means another blow—he won’t have them make light of Grantaire’s sacrifice for his fellow man this way.

But then Grantaire speaks. “Yes. I’m in love with him. I’ll do anything for him. Sounds like that could be quite a bit more fun for you than raping a crying virgin, does it not?”

There is a silence while the guards look at each other. Enjolras can hear Jehan crying quietly. No doubt this is all too much for the sensibilities of the poet. He wonders what the rest of the Amis are thinking.

Then the cell door opens properly, and they seize Grantaire. The hands on him are rough, cruel, but he doesn’t protest.

He _smiles._


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: yes
> 
> To be more specific, this chapter features graphic sexual assault, including watersports, physical abuse, and deliberate, sexualized humiliation, including body- and slut-shaming. 
> 
> If you have triggers related to any of these things, please take care of yourself and avoid this fic.

Enjolras staggers to his feet and tries to rush at them. If his words can’t persuade them, he’ll free Grantaire by force, though his head is already ringing from the blows he’d sustained earlier. He’s not above violence when it is necessary, and he cannot imagine a better cause than this one. He doesn’t have much of a plan for how they’re going to get out of this situation in the long term, just that he can’t let these men keep touching Grantaire. 

But he’s weak enough that he can’t summon the speed he would usually possess, and the guard holding Grantaire sees him coming. He kicks Enjolras back to the ground with a sharp blow to his knee, one that leaves him at least momentarily unable to stand. He ignores the stunning pain as he tries to crawl towards them, but the door to the cell slams shut before he can reach them, with Grantaire, and the four guards, on the other side. 

“No!” Enjolras howls, but he knows it’s too late. Grantaire isn’t even looking at him. It’s only then the he realizes how strange that is. Grantaire is _always_ looking at him. But it’s as if he’s pretending he can’t hear Enjolras, as if Enjolras isn’t even here. 

Enjolras can’t believe this is happening. He can’t make himself think that this is really going to be done, right in front of him, that he’s not going to be able to do anything to stop Grantaire from being brutalized and raped for his sake. That there’s nothing he can do to comfort Grantaire or save him.

He hates being helpless. It’s never been his way to admit that a problem is too difficult to solve. He didn’t do that even when the problem was the existence of the monarchy and the tyranny that ensued. This should be easier, or at least simpler, and yet he’s as helpless as he was when the guards dragged them from the barricades and threw them in here. 

The four men are surrounding Grantaire, grinning and leering at him. One of them reaches out and grabs him, a single rough hand on his backside. Grantaire doesn’t flinch away—he leans into the unwanted, harsh touch. He even graces the monsters abusing him with a smile in return. “Tell me where you want me, lads.”

Enduring this is one thing. But putting on the act of desire—that takes a strength that Enjolras knows he lacks himself, that he would never have imagined Grantaire to be capable of. Grantaire is an elaborate performer of his rambling monologues, true, but this steadfastness… Enjolras did not credit him with it.

He gave Grantaire altogether too little faith, he supposes. Another thing for him to feel ashamed of, amongst his long list of faults. He will add it to the count he will keep against himself, the litany of shame that will be with him forever now, after having—however unwillingly—accepted this sacrifice from Grantaire for his own selfish preservation. 

“Well,” one of the guards says. “I think you’d better strip.”

The others hoot and cheer at that. 

“Say, gentlemen, wouldn’t you rather take me back to your office?” Grantaire suggests, his voice cheerful. “Might be less distracting, and a bit more comfortable if you’d something to bend me over. Up to you, of course. It’s all up to you.”

The guards talk amongst themselves for a moment, until one of them—a dark-haired fellow, the tallest of the lot—says, “Seems like you don’t want us to do this in front of your friends.”

Grantaire shrugs, clearly lying. He’ll plead to protect Enjolras, but not to avoid any measure of his own humiliation. “It’s all the same to me.”

“Then we’ll have you here.”

“As you’d like.” 

Grantaire doesn’t have to be told again to take his clothes off. He strips naked, letting his wine-stained chemise and paint-covered trousers fall to the floor. There’s something almost delicate about the way he moves, though his frame is not what anyone would naturally call graceful. 

“Wow,” the tall, dark-haired guard says. “You really are an ugly son of a bitch.”

“Turn around for us, whore. Give us a show.”

Enjolras has never seen Grantaire unclothed before. It’s true that, in contrast to his own slim form, Grantaire is round about the belly, his chest covered in patches of uneven hair and dotted with moles and stretch marks. His thighs are thick, his backside marred with patches of cellulite. His cock, a little larger than Enjolras’s own, lies soft. 

He shouldn’t be seeing this. He’s not sure what’s worse, participating in Grantaire’s humiliation, or being too cowardly to watch what Grantaire is enduring for his sake. 

The taunts about his appearance seem to affect Grantaire as nothing else has. Though the guards’ eyes upon him are hungry now, not scornful, Grantaire bows his head slightly, no longer entirely able to hide the humiliation behind a mask of cheerful indifference. Because they’re all watching—not just the guardsmen, but the Amis, too. 

Enjolras looks around at his compatriots, taking stock of what they’re all making of this horror. Jehan is curled up, weeping softly, in their same cell. Combeferre and Courfeyrac, both mercifully uninjured, are watching from the cell across from theirs. Combeferre’s face is grave, Courfeyrac’s twisted with disgust and an anger that suits his cheerful disposition badly. The rest of the Amis he cannot see—Bahorel and Feuilly, along with Joly and Boussuet, are on the far side of the solid stone wall, not across from them through the bars. But he can imagine the rage Bahorel must be feeling, Feuilly struggling to hold him back, Joly and Boussuet sick at the sight of their dear friend being so mistreated. 

Enjolras decides he has to make himself watch what happens next. It’s the least he can do for Grantaire, who, for his sake, is enduring what Enjolras must admit he could not. Even if his friends’ lives were threatened, Enjolras would not be able to keep himself from fighting. 

Oh, the first of it he would survive. They order Grantaire to his knees, and the big one, who seems to be a sort of leader, lets down his trousers and makes Grantaire fellate him. The others watch and jeer, rubbing their own erections through their uniforms. Enjolras would be able to force himself to do that, though he wouldn’t have Grantaire’s ability to persevere even as he gags and chokes, to not resist even when the second guard takes his turn, to endure the slaps and mockery that come next. 

But the rest of it…

The rest of it he could never bear. He does not have the strength it would take to endure this, the harm that is so calculatedly cruel, and that cuts so much farther and so much deeper than the abuse of Grantaire’s physical self. 

Because these men do not content themselves with violating Grantaire’s body. They seem intent on humiliating and debasing him in every way possible. Perhaps it is merely his willingness to submit to them that sparks this cruelty, or perhaps it is because the type of men who would take advantage of a prisoner are really longing, not for physical fulfillment, but for the thrill of their own power. 

Enjolras doesn’t know. He’ll never understand these men, these monsters. He can only watch and swear vengeance for every wicked act. He can only watch, and hate himself more with every time that they dare to touch Grantaire’s unresisting body. 

The third guard makes Grantaire crawl over to him, tells him to beg for it again. And Grantaire does, his voice so filled with obvious desperation that Enjolras wants to hide his head in shame. He’s not worth this. No one is. 

“Please, sir, let me suck your cock. I’ll be good for you, I promise.”

“No.” The guard undoes his trousers, and orders Grantaire to lick at his testicles instead. Grantaire obeys uncomplainingly, even when the guard ejaculates on the ground and tells Grantaire to lick it up, semen and the filth of the prison floor now staining his mouth. 

The guards laugh at that. “A real desperate whore, huh? Is there anything you wouldn’t do?”

Grantaire’s quick retorts of before seem gone. Maybe they’ve been beaten out of him. Enjolras isn’t the best judge of such matters, but Grantaire does not seem to be thinking entirely clearly—it’s as though he’s in another frame of mind entirely, the way that men in battle can when they’ve been badly injured. Grantaire has not suffered too much physical abuse as of yet, but clearly this humiliation has sent him into the same frame of mind. “No, sir,” he murmurs in obedient response, his face pressed against the dirty ground. 

They’re grinning now, the last guard approaching him. He at least doesn’t violate Grantaire’s body, though maybe what he does is worse—he works his own cock quickly, ejaculating down onto Grantaire’s face. He follows it up with a thick stream of urine. Grantaire flinches at that, but doesn’t resist. “Say thank you,” the man leers.

“Thank you, sir.”

“Tell me you deserve it.”

“I deserve it.”

The guard kicks him, hard, in the stomach. Grantaire lets out a sobbing gasp. “You can do better than that.”

“I deserve to get pissed on. I asked for it. I begged for it. I’m a filthy whore, it’s what I deserve.”

Enjolras can’t see Grantaire’s face, but he can hear that he’s crying from the broken sobs that interrupt his words. And then they’re laughing at him again, and Enjolras can’t watch anymore. 

He’s disgusted with his own cowardice, that he doesn’t even have the courage to watch while Grantaire endures all of this for his sake, and yet he knows that he can’t do it. 

He curls in a ball, hiding his head in his knees. He feels Jehan’s hand on his shoulder, a gentle touch that he shakes off. He doesn’t deserve it. He doesn’t deserve any comfort, when he’s letting Grantaire suffer this way, and only for his sake.

He can’t watch as the rest of the guards also urinate onto Grantaire, as one of them kneels behind him and presses his face into the mess on the floor.

And then the thing he’s known all along would come arrives. The first of the guards is aroused again, and he reaches down, spreading Grantaire’s arse wide open. 

“What do you think? Should I shove it in dry? Or maybe…” He glances over one shoulder, back toward Enjolras. “Maybe there’s someone who would like to give you a little assistance.”

“Do you want your little boyfriend’s tongue up your asshole?” Another guard taunts. “A better place for that smart mouth of his, I think, shoved into the fuckhole of a dirty whore.”

“No, please,” Grantaire pleads, and Enjolras wants to beg too, wants to be allowed to give Grantaire at least a little relief from the pain that is surely coming, but he’s crying too hard to find words. “Please, do it dry, shove it in me, make it hurt. I want it, I need it, please…”

“You’re a terrible liar, you know,” the first guard says casually, as he spits onto Grantaire’s exposed hole and pushes inside him. 

Grantaire sobs in agony as he’s raped. 

The guards line up behind him, waiting for their turn—but not patiently. They reach over to grab at him, pinching his nipples, slapping his ass. And again and again, as one at a time they abuse him, that first guard, the cruelest of them all, asks, “Do you want us to stop?”

And every time, Grantaire begs, “No, please, don’t stop. More, please, fuck me, use my filthy hole, please,” until one of the waiting guards grows impatient and shoves his way back into Grantaire’s mouth. 

It feels as though their torture of Grantaire—for that’s what it is, torture, pure and simple—will go on forever. They wrench his arms behind his back, yanking at his wrists while they fuck him. They slap his face until he cries. They rape his mouth and his arse. They cover him in spit and come and piss. They call him a disgusting, worthless pig. They beat him with their fists and their boots and their belts. 

Most of all, they laugh at him, at his cries of pain, at his naked body, at his pleas for the torture to continue lest they turn their attention back to Enjolras.

And Enjolras, brimming with shame, hides his face and weeps. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So technically this is the last chapter, but I am considering writing a slightly fluffier epilogue if that's something people would be into?

It can’t go on forever, though there are moments when Enjolras feels as though it’s going to. Sooner or later their lust for sex and power alike is sated on Grantaire’s abused and unresisting body. It takes longer than he can believe, longer than he could have imagined the act of sex (something he previously had no direct experience with) could have extended. 

They each abuse Grantaire multiple times. When they can no longer rouse themselves, they beat him and mock him until they can. They make him beg for more and laugh at him for doing so. 

Enjolras can no longer watch, but he cannot drown out the sounds, either of their cruelty or of Grantaire’s voice, first the desperate pleading and then the sounds of pain, and then the pleading for more again, and then more crying…

Enjolras wishes himself dead. He wishes he had never been born, rather than bring this undeserved suffering onto a friend who only wanted to protect him. He wonders how much Grantaire will hate him when this is all done, and then berates himself for being so selfish. He must not think of his own feelings. He has to plan their escape, and the revenge he will take on each of them for daring to harm Grantaire thus.

But he can’t turn his thoughts in that direction. He can, for the first time in his life, no longer imagine a world of freedom and justice. Not with Grantaire’s sobs in the background, turning slowly to a broken silence. 

They have to haul Grantaire back onto his feet by his arm, as he’s too weak to stand, and all but throw him back into the cell. He falls in an exhausted, unresisting heap. 

“We’ll be back soon. Don’t bother cleaning up.”

And then they’re gone, the sounds of their footfalls echoing through the hallway. Grantaire does not move or react. 

Enjolras is trembling all over, but he tells himself he has to be brave. Not as brave as Grantaire has been, certainly—he can never hope to match such a feat—but at least brave enough to give him some small measure of comfort in the wake of what he has just been through. 

He crawls over to where Grantaire has been dumped callously onto the bare cell floor, though he’s careful not to get too close. He doesn’t want to invade Grantaire’s space. 

“‘Aire?” He says, careful to keep his voice gentle, though it does not come naturally to him. “Are you all right?” At once, he could curse himself for asking such a damnably stupid question. Of course Grantaire isn’t all right, he’s just been beaten and humiliated and raped. He is bound to be suffering, both physically and mentally. 

But Grantaire only draws his knees up a little tighter toward his chest and whispers something. His voice is so soft as to be barely audible, so it takes Enjolras a moment to realize what he’s saying is, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” 

“Grantaire?” He doesn’t understand. “Why—what do you mean?” The urge to reach out for him is almost overwhelming. He restrains himself, though—he’s worried about hurting Grantaire, and he doesn’t trust himself not to worsen the fear his friend must already be feeling. 

“You were never supposed to know.” Grantaire’s voice sounds destroyed. It’s rough and raspy, no doubt from the abuse he’s suffered to his mouth and throat, but there’s also a resigned, deadened note that frightens Enjolras more than the physical evidence of Grantaire’s suffering.

It takes him a minute to realize what Grantaire means. Enjolras hasn’t given any more thought to Grantaire’s agonized confession of his romantic feelings for Enjolras since he made it—far more pressing has been the torment Grantaire was facing. But if speaking of it can give Grantaire some measure of reassurance, however small, then it is his duty to give it. 

He stops to choose his words with care, though. His friends, and particularly Combeferre and Courfeyrac, who know him the best of anyone, have often cautioned him that he is too quick to fall to insults, too slow to offer care when it is owed. Often his words come out harsher than he means them. Such a result is unacceptable now. 

“Grantaire, I—“ He starts to say _don’t care,_ but he knows those are the wrong words. He mustn’t dismiss the emotion for which Grantaire has already sacrificed so much. “I am honored by your care for me. I don’t deserve it.”

Grantaire doesn’t answer that. He’s still curled in a ball, bleeding onto the hard stone floor. It’s almost harder to watch this aftermath than it was to see the act itself, because now Enjolras could be helping, if only he weren’t so _useless._ He knows the rest of the Amis, their other friends, could perhaps do more than he can, can see Jehan watching from his own corner of the cell, and yet he also knows the responsibility falls on his own shoulders—as the leader of their group, and also as the person for whose sake Grantaire endured all of this. 

“Is there… is there anything I can do? Can I help at all?” Enjolras looks desperately around the nearly-bare cell. Some part of him is hoping that something useful will turn up, that he’ll suddenly lay eyes upon food or water or medicine, something he can use to ease Grantaire’s wounds. One thing occurs to him. “Here.”

He strips off his own shirt and offers it to Grantaire, since the guards had left his clothes on the other side of the locked door. Grantaire reaches out to accept it, his hand trembling visibly. “Thank you,” he says.

His shirt is tight over Grantaire’s broad shoulders, but Enjolras is tall enough that his shirt falls nearly to Grantaire’s knees, offering him—as Enjolras had hoped—some small vestige of modesty. 

“Just make sure to take it back before they return,” Grantaire says. “I don’t want your clothing ruined as well.”

Enjolras frowns at that. “Grantaire, surely you don’t think I’m going to allow you to go through that again.”

“I’m not sure why you think you have any choice in the matter,” Grantaire retorts, a little bit of his normal sharpness showing through. It’s a relief to have Grantaire snap at him. It shows that there is still some fight left in him. And he deserves worse from Grantaire, much worse. 

“We’ll find a way to fight back, or we’ll take it in turns if we must. Next time we’ll be prepared.”

Grantaire sits up at that. The movement is clearly painful, but he pulls himself into a more upright position nonetheless, so he can look Enjolras directly in the eye. “Enjolras, in the years we have known each other, have I ever asked you for anything?”

Enjolras thinks back. There have been moments when Grantaire has asked for a chance to prove himself, a job to do, but he’s never seriously made a personal request of Enjolras, not even those casual matters to which friendship might entitle him. “No,” he answers, honestly. 

“And it seems to me that you feel yourself in my debt because of what has occurred, am I right?”

“Of course. You took on yourself a suffering too terrible to articulate, you sacrificed yourself—“

“In return, all I ask is that you will not allow that sacrifice to be in vain.” Grantaire’s eyes are swimming with damp tears now, still unshed. “Please,” he says, and the sound of him begging, _again,_ after he has been degraded so thoroughly, after so many pleas were forced unwilling from his lips, is unbearable. 

“Grantaire—“

“Don’t let them do this to you. Not any of you.” Grantaire glances at Jehan then, the vulnerable poet so slight in his form and nursing such a terrible wound in his side. 

Enjolras’s voice breaks as he answers to that. “I cannot let you endure that again, Grantaire. I must fear you would not survive it.”

“You said once that I was incapable of anything— of believing, of thinking, of willing, of living, and of dying.”

Enjolras winces to have his cruel words tossed back in his face like that. Grantaire’s tone is not at all accusatory—it is distant, almost dreamlike, which makes it worse. Enjolras does not remember saying those exact words, but they fit with the disdain he knows he showed Grantaire for too long. Even today, he thought nothing of him, until his sacrifice. And the precision with which Grantaire speaks tells him that he is quoting Enjolras exactly. Enjolras may have forgotten his own words, but Grantaire did not—apparently, _could_ not.

“I was surprised that you would go so far, of course,” Grantaire says. “Certainly I am capable of belief—in you, if nothing else. And if today had gone only slightly differently, I think I would have shown myself able to die as well as any other man here. But you were not wrong to name me a useless burden to your cause. I am no true believer, no brave warrior for what is right. I am only a fool in love with a god far beyond his reach. I am only a man who loves the light, and sees it in you. And I am capable of something, I realize now.”

Grantaire pauses to take a steadying breath. It is shaky, and Enjolras is once again reminded, horribly, of how much pain Grantaire must be in still, of how little he can do to ease it. 

“Of this, I am capable. Permit me, then, to do it.”

“No,” Enjolras says, his voice filled with horror. “Never. I’ll never agree to it, I’ll never allow you to be substituted for me, to suffer on my behalf.”

Grantaire smiles at him, almost tenderly. “You already have. Allow it to have some meaning, at least.” 

“I am grateful for what you have done. It was an act of great bravery—“

“It was not,” Grantaire corrects, still gently. “It was an act of love. A sacrifice before the altar of my adoration for you. You must know that, though I see that it revolts you.”

“ _Revolts?_ ”

“Yes,” Grantaire continues. He is calm as he speaks, in spite of the physical evidence of the torment he has just survived, in spite of the bruises blooming all over his face and the exposed parts of his body, in spite of the fluids still drying on his flesh. “You can scarcely stand to look at me. Certainly you could not bear to touch me. I do not blame you for it, for you are pure, and I… Well, you heard me say it more than once. I am a filthy and degraded whore. A position of little benefit, true, but at the least it qualifies me to better tolerate the lusts of monsters than you—any of you—could.”

“Grantaire—“ And Enjolras knows not where to begin, so he does what his instincts have been screaming at him to do since Grantaire was first returned to the cell, and reaches out for him. “Surely you don’t believe I think less of you because of what you have endured.”

“I don’t want your pity,” Grantaire says bitterly. It may be the first lie he has ever told Enjolras. 

“Will you accept my gratitude, then?”

Grantaire hesitates. But after a long moment, he says, “Very well, then,” and he takes Enjolras’s outstretched hand. 

Enjolras can tell he still doesn’t believe in his words, not wholeheartedly. But he is willing to try, and Enjolras tells himself that has to be enough. It is a chance to repay some small part of the debt he owes Grantaire, and give him some measure of comfort. 

It’s all he can do, and he knows it will never be enough. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> by popular demand, the Comfort

Enjolras wakes up in a soft feather bed, against pristine white sheets. He flinches at first, worried his blood-stained and grimy body will dirty the linens, but then he remembers the careful hands of a kind stranger helping him into a bath the night before. He remembers, hazily, through the veil of terror and starvation, that they have been rescued. 

They had been prisoners for nearly a week, and he had given up all hope of either rescue or escape. He, Enjolras, vanguard of the revolution, had given up.

How could he do otherwise? They had not been fed in that week, and the supplies even of dirty water was scant. There was no rest to be had in the barren cell. If he spoke out of turn or dared to make any attempt at his liberty, he would be beaten by the guards. 

But none of that sapped his spirit like watching Grantaire be abused as he had been. Every few hours, and sometimes more often, they would come for him—the guards, their comrades, their friends off the street. They tormented him until they could no longer take any more pleasure from his abused body, and then dumped him into the cell, naked, beaten, and defiled. 

Knowing that there was nothing he could do to protect Grantaire, knowing that Grantaire was suffering for his sake and he was helpless to prevent it, broke Enjolras far more effectively than the same treatment, meted out against himself, could have been.

And then, when he was resigned to starving to death in this cell, when he was beginning to contemplate ending his own life in the hopes of bringing a premature end to the charade of making Grantaire beg for his own torture for Enjolras’s safety, the cell door clicked open in the night.

He did not know exactly how Marius had arranged their rescue—though of course he did not perform it himself. It was a young gamine, a girl of perhaps fifteen, dressed in lad’s clothing, that had opened the cells for them. 

“I’m ‘Ponine. Pontmercy sent me. Get a move on,” she’d hissed, and there had been no time for questions or doubt. 

Those of them who could walk under their own power helped Jehan and Joly, badly injured in the fighting, and Grantaire, badly injured afterwards, towards the door. A carriage was waiting for them, and had brought them here. 

Enjolras had heard a chorus of voices, talking of the bribes that had been paid, and the guards that would still need to be paid off, and how long they’d need to lie low for safety, and who would call for a doctor, and then all of that had begun to seem unimportant as he had fallen into a sleep that had restored some of his vitality. 

“Oh, you’re awake!” A voice says. He doesn’t know this one either, though he thinks he may have heard it last night. It belongs to an older man, clearly a gentleman by his dress and bearing, though powerfully built beneath his fine clothes. “I am Jean Valjean, soon to be the father-in-law of young Marius Pontmercy. I understand you are the leader of this fine band of boys who are currently taking up every room in my house?”

“I am sorry, sir,” Enjolras says, his voice raspy, and though he means it only as a courtesy, he cannot help but hear in those formulaic words Grantaire’s desperate pleas, _no, I’m sorry, sir, I won’t do it again, I’m sorry…_ He tries to stumble to his feet, hoping to do… something. 

“Nonsense. I am happy to help—any friends of my son are friends of mine, and welcome guests in my house. Though I must ask you not to rouse yourself yet. The doctor is on his way, and I fear you will need much rest and nourishment before you are ready to lead any more revolutions.”

“Wait,” Enjolras says, shocking himself with his rudeness, but he has to know. “I will, I just—I have to know. The others…”

“Some are awake. I had a most interesting discourse on the fan makers of Warsaw with a M. Feuilly. And your physician friend, M. Combeferre, recommended a doctor of his acquaintance who is here now. The others rest still. My daughter Cosette, Mademoiselle Eponine, who you met last night, her brother Gavroche, and Pontmercy are taking it in turns to check in on them.”

“One… One in particular.” Enjolras swallows hard. “Grantaire. The short one, with the dark curls?”

“Ah. The young man who was ravished,” Valjean says, frankly. “He is quite badly hurt, I am given to understand. But there is no fear that he will not recover. The doctor is with him, dealing with the worst of his wounds, and he will heal, in time. In spirit, as well as in body—if I may speak from some experience. I was a prisoner myself once, for nineteen years at the Bagne de Toulon. I saw such atrocities, many times, and experienced some. And I am now a happy man, a devoted servant of God, and an adoring father to my Cosette. Soon I will have the joy of presenting her on her wedding day. There is life after such things.”

Enjolras knows he should be soothed by these kind and knowledgeable words, from the stranger that he apparently owes his life and safety to, but he cannot be. “Can I see him?”

“I can go see if he’s willing. In the meantime, try to eat something.”

There is weak tea and bread beside the bed, and Enjolras makes himself eat it, though his empty stomach and dry throat threaten to revolt. He tells himself it is necessary. He wants to be in a position to grow stronger again, strong enough to protect Grantaire if need be. That means he needs to eat.

He has managed four bites of bread and nearly the whole cup of sugared tea when there is a knock on the door. “Grantaire says he will see you,” Valjean tells him. “No, stay in bed—“ for Enjolras is trying at once to rise. “I will assist, if you are willing.”

Humiliating though it is, Enjolras accepts the help. He takes the old man’s arm and lets Valjean help him hobble down a hallway towards another door. He’s even grateful for it—his head is spinning, and he fears he may not have made the journey without support.

“Grantaire is in here,” Valjean tells him. “Just call if either of you needs anything. And… be gentle. He is suffering still.”

Enjolras hopes he won’t need that caution. He has nothing in mind but to see that Grantaire is safe and as well as he can be after his ordeal, and to offer him a thousand apologies that he endured so much for Enjolras’s sake. 

The room is simple, but finely furnished, with a bed, a chair, and a large open window. Valjean helps him to a chair at Grantaire’s bedside. 

Grantaire is sitting upright in the bed, propped up on pillows. He looks ghastly—his injuries are beginning to turn to bruises, his face swollen and bloodied, his lips split. But he smiles at the sight of Enjolras, though the movement seems to cause him some pain. “Apollo.”

In the past, he’s always snapped at Grantaire for that nickname. “How are you?”

“Alive,” Grantaire says quietly. His eyes search Enjolras’s face, looking for something. Enjolras wishes he knew what—he would give Grantaire anything. 

“Is there anything… can I do anything for you?”

Grantaire bites his sore-looking lower lip, clearly considering something. Then, apparently finding his courage, he nods. “There is one thing, if I may.”

“Anything in the world. Though I will admit I may need a few more good meals before I can go to the ends of the earth for you, I will,” Enjolras says simply. 

“That,” Grantaire says, and then pauses while he looks for words. “You say things like that. You say you are grateful. You say… the things I’ve always wanted to hear. So. I will go so far to dare to ask you. Is it true, Enjolras? Or are you trying only to assuage your guilt?”

“Have you ever known me to lie before?”

“True enough. But these are exceptional circumstances. Listen: I didn’t do it for you. You owe me nothing.”

“Of course you—“ to finish that sentence, to say, _you did it for me,_ seems hopelessly vain. 

“I did it because I wanted to. Because it was far easier for me to suffer myself than to allow you to do so. You had no choice in the sacrifice I chose to make, Enjolras, and therefore you can owe me nothing in return. I need you to understand that much. I need…”

And all at once, Enjolras realizes what he’s saying. Grantaire isn’t just trying to assuage Enjolras’s guilt. He’s trying to reassure himself, that Enjolras’s protestations of care and gratitude are coming from somewhere deeper than guilt. That he actually cares—and that his care isn’t going to be taken away when the guilt expires. “I understand,” Enjolras says. “I can still be grateful, though.”

“I guess I cannot stop you.” But Grantaire smiles, a little bit. “I suppose I’ll believe you. At least for now.”

“That is all I can ask. You’ve done more than enough, after all.” Enjolras, struck by sudden impulse, reaches out towards his hand. But Grantaire doesn’t pull away. Instead, he laces his fingers carefully with Enjolras’s. 

“Please,” Grantaire says, and the sound of him begging is intolerable. Surely he’s pleaded enough for a lifetime. Enjolras would like to be sure that, from here on out, Grantaire always gets what he wants before he has to ask. It may seem an impossible task, but he is ready to devote himself to it. “Don’t do this, Enjolras. Don’t say you’ll be here, and then leave. I won’t survive it.”

“I’m not leaving,” Enjolras promises. 

“You are remarkable, you know,” Grantaire says. “I can tell. You really don’t think any less of me, after all that you saw.”

“Of course not!” Enjolras is offended at the very suggestion. “You were abused, and… and forced, and you were so brave—“

“Still. You didn’t exactly think highly of me beforehand.”

Enjolras winces. “I was an idiot, okay? I only saw your bluster. I didn’t bother to think about what might be underneath that. It was terrible of me, and I’m really sorry.”

“Okay,” Grantaire says, smiling slightly. “I mean, you saw what I wanted you to see. I was afraid of you finding out… well. It seems silly now.”

Enjolras looks down, and finds out their hands are still joined together. “What seemed silly?”

“I was afraid, if you found out how I feel about you, you’d think less of me. Or not want to be around me. I was pretty embarrassed of my crush… not that it holds a candle to the embarrassing situations you’ve seen me in now.”

“I don’t know how many ways I can tell you this,” Enjolras says, “But I’ll try as many as I can think of, and as many times as you need to hear it. You have _nothing_ to be embarrassed about, Grantaire. You acted heroically, and all the shame falls on those who attacked and abused you.”

“You don’t have to…” Grantaire tries, but he’s blushing a little. Enjolras may not be skilled at reading people, but he can tell that he’s on the right track. 

“You are stronger and braver than I could ever have been. The things you not only endured, but _asked_ for, to protect others, make you a martyr for the cause of freedom, and also for friendship and justice. I feel fortunate to know you, and honored that such a man would think well of me.”

Grantaire’s smile blossoms across his face like the sun coming out after a storm. 

“You should never have had to prove your worth in such a way, and I wish that I had seen you for who you are sooner.”

“I still would have done it,” Grantaire says. “I wasn’t trying to prove anything to you.”

“I know that,” Enjolras soothes. “You wanted only to protect me. And, unwilling though I am to accept your sacrifice—you did. ‘Aire, you did.”

“That’s all I wanted,” Grantaire says. “For you to be safe.” With that he closes his eyes, his face still turned towards Enjolras. Enjolras realizes how tired he looks, and that he’s probably being irresponsible to burden him with more conversation when he’s still healing. 

“Rest,” he urges Grantaire. “I’m well, and I’m here. I’ll be by your side when you awaken.”

Grantaire smiles as he drifts off to sleep, his hand warm in Enjolras’s. 


End file.
